In order for the Gummi ship to land, the planet had to have land. The Gummi Ship sunk instead.

Atlantica

"Hey Hanna!" Dani said, a stupid grin lighting up her face. "The Gummi Ship is yellow, right?"

"What? Yeah."

"And this is a process you would usually call submerging, right?"

"Sure…"

"And we live in this Gummi ship now, right?"

"Oh god…"

"So would you say that we all live in a y—"

"Why are we underwater anyway?" Penny asked.

"About 75% of this planet is water." Donald explained. "We're more likely to find the Keyhole down here."

"Oh geeze, it's a good thing we didn't have to look for the Keyhole on Earth." Katie said. "Although people did die because of it."

"How are we supposed to find the Keyhole down here, then?" Sora asked.

"Just leave that to me!" Donald said.

When Hanna left the Gummi ship next, she had a tail and gills. She supposed it was better than Donald's tentacles.

"Flounder, look at this! Isn't this the most wonderful thing you've ever seen?"

"Wh-what is it?"

Ariel looked at the device in her hand. It looked like her father's trident, but it was too small and lacked the power that flowed from it. "I'm not sure. I bet Scuttle knows!"

"Alright...let's go find him! And not come back here!" Flounder said.

"Since when have you been such a guppy, Flounder?" Ariel teased.

The answer was always. Flounder had always been a guppy.

Ariel swam a bit further. She probably had a bit more time before the rehearsal, and she didn't want to waste it. There had to be something else she could find in here.

She turned around the corner and found it. It was a vessel, she could tell that much. However, it was boxlike and closed, unlike the shipwreck she was in now. Even without being familiar with how it was built, she could tell that it was in pristine condition.

Voices came out of it. She hid behind the corner, only peeking out of the corners of her eye to see. Mermaids filed out, stumbling as they hit open water. They were followed closely by a merman and two creatures Ariel couldn't quite recognize. They looked like an octopus and a turtle, but the octopus looked too much like Scuttle on the top and she couldn't quite figure out what was wrong with the turtle.

"Oh," Said the one with black hair. "Oh no. How are we supposed move around like this?"

"No way." Said the one with two strands of brown hair tied back. "There's no way."

"Aw, it's not that hard once you get used to it!" The turtle said.

"The swimming isn't that bad, but what's going to happen when we have to fight Heartless, or swim away from a—"

"SHARK!" Flounder cried.

All heads turned towards the source, including Ariel's. Discretion forgotten, she charged after Flounder, and came face to face with a Great White Shark.

She grabbed Flounder and tucked him under her arm and swam as fast as she could before it could even think to get close to her. The sounds of bubbles and splashing told her that she wasn't the only one speeding away. The strange mermaids were behind her, flailing wildly in a mimic of a swim. The shark was faster.

Against her better judgment, she slowed herself down and grabbed onto the hand of the nearest stranger—the merman. She pulled. The merman grabbed the closest to him, and so on, until they had formed a neat chain of mercreatures. Exactly as she wanted.

The extra weight of seven people on her tail was tough, but not overwhelming. Ariel sped forward. She didn't dare look, but the noise of the shark bumping into the remains of the ship and demolishing warned her of how close it was to her.

If she couldn't outrun him...she would have to find another way.

Her eyes focused on a circular device in the wreckage. There! She swam through it, and pulled the chain of mermaids with her. It was big enough for the nine of them, but too narrow for a full adult white shark. It managed to get its head through, but not its fins.

The shark snapped its jaws and squirmed. Its tail wagged furiously as it realized it was trapped in the circular device. Flounder swam up to her to blow a raspberry at the shark, and jumped back into Ariel's arm as the shark snapped its jaw again.

"That was close." The merman said.

"No kidding!" said the one with brown hair. "We could have just become shark chow!"

Ariel watched the group banter for a moment as the wheels in her head spun. Finally, she got the courage to speak up.

"Excuse me. You're not...mermaids, are you?"

The seven fell silent.

"Wow, we're really bad at this." The gold hair one said.

"Then if you're not mermaids..." Ariel said.

"We're magic users." The octopus shaped one said with a sigh of defeat. "Or at least, I am."

"That is an accurate summary of our abilities, yes." The one with her hair tied back said.

"We came to this world to look for a Keyhole. Since we're not used to being underwater, we had to adapt."

"So you're...from the surface!" Ariel gasped as she realized it. "That means you're human?"

"Well, five humans, a duck and a dog." The one with yellow hair said.

"That's amazing!" Ariel said. Her mind was going too fast for her to really process what she wanted to say. "I've always wanted to meet humans! I've studied you so much—oh! Can you tell me what this is?"

She held out the trident shaped device. The seven stared at it with mild looks of confusion.

"A fork?" The one with black hair said. "Ah—you use it to eat. It's not really all that special."

"Oh, I think it's wonderful! Humans always create so many wonderful things..." Her mind was beginning to slow down, and Ariel was able to process what they had said to her. "You said you were looking for something? How about I help you?"

"We don't want to drag you into this-" The octopus started.

"Nonsense! Nobody knows the ocean better than I do! Let's stop by my grotto first; maybe we can find some information!"

Ariel's Grotto truly was something to behold. From top to bottom, it was covered in items, no doubt recovered from shipwrecks like the one they had landed it. They ranged from immaculately made and decorated music boxes still full of jewelry that would make some women drool to fountain pens that had long run out of ink. However, it was evident that Ariel had kept them as carefully as she could.

Which was why it was a shame that half the grotto was wrecked now.

"Daddy!" Ariel cried.

The merman that stood in the grotto turned around. Instantly, Dani could tell that he was something important. Power and respect seemed to radiate from him. That and you could grate cheese on those abs…

"Ariel!" His voice boomed through the grotto. Impressive, since there was no air. "I thought I told you to stay in the palace! It isn't safe here."

"But Daddy, I was trying to help my friends!" Ariel said.

Ariel's father's eyes fell down onto them.

"And I suppose they had something to do with all this...human junk?"

"It's not junk!"

"I told you to stay away from humans! Why must you always disobey me?"

"Why must you always treat me like a child?"

"I think we walked into something really personal here-" Dani interrupted. She was ignored.

Ariel's father raised the trident in his hand. It glowed with magic, and in the blink of an eye the other half of the grotto was wrecked.

"Now go back to the palace and think about what you've done." Ariel's father ordered.

Ariel froze in place for just a second, tears brimming in her eyes. She swam off in a huff, Flounder close on her tail. Dani turned to follow her.

"You there. Key Bearer." Ariel's father spoke again.

That got all seven of them to freeze.

"Ah—"A crab scrambled out towards them. "Present to you, his most royal highness, King Trident of the Seven-"

"Sebastian." Ariel's father interrupted. "Go check on Ariel. Make sure she gets back to the palace safely. I wish to talk to them alone."

"Y—yes sir." The crab scrambled off.

Trident waited until he was gone to speak again.

"You may have fooled my daughter, but you can't fool me."

"We didn't fool her at all!" Sora said. "We told her what was going on and she decided to help us!"

"Then you must know that, as Key Bearers, you must not meddle in the affairs of other worlds!" Trident's voice boomed.

"I feel like you were going to be mad at us no matter what." Katie said.

"I thank you for protecting my daughter." Trident said. "But my ocean has no room for you or your Key. A Keyblade wielder only brings about death and destruction."

"We're not like that!" Dani said. "I mean, we've lost three people-"

King Trident obviously didn't care to figure out where this conversation was going. He turned on his tail and left, leaving the seven alone.

Ariel ignored Sebastian's protests to keep up with her. She swam as fast as her tail could carry her, and didn't slow down until she found a private place where she could be alone. Her whole grotto, destroyed in minutes! Why did her father not understand? How could humans be so bad, if they make so many nice things?

She didn't know how long she was there, trying to stop herself from crying, when she realized she wasn't alone.

"My, my...the poor child suffers such deep sorrow..."

"…What a pity...if only there were something we could do."

Ariel looked up from the rock she had been crying on. Two eels were circling around her, each one eyeing her with golden eyes.

"Wait...maybe she can be some help..."

"Who are you talking about?" Ariel said, trying to hide the shake in her voice.

"Why, Ursula the Sea Witch of course..."

"…She would certainly help you. She loves to help poor unfortunate souls."

Ariel bit back a gasp. Daddy had been warning her about Ursula for years, even if it was buried in all of his other lectures. Still...she was a witch. And a magic user was what Ariel needed right now.

"Do you think we should go find Ariel?" Hanna asked. "She looked really upset."

"I'm not sure." Goofy said. "Ariel's a friend, but as a father, I see what Trident means about keeping her safe."

What?

"YOU'RE A FATHER?" The five humans exclaimed.

"Gawrsh, have I not mentioned Maxie to ya?" Goofy said. "I've been raising him on my own for years!"

"YOU'RE A SINGLE FATHER?!" Somehow, that's more surprising.

"A-yup! Not to mention, Donald has three little nephews. I bet he wouldn't want them to get into trouble neither!" Goofy said.

"Not like that stops them..." Donald grumbled and folded his wings. "Huey, Dewey and Louie. They work for the uncle running a shop in Traverse Town."

"No yeah, we've met." Hanna said flatly. She didn't want to reveal the only real interaction she had with them ended with her covered in hi-potion goo. "I'm surprised though. I guess I really don't know enough about you guys."

"Yeah, like what are you?" Katie asked.

"We're Toons." Donald said. "Isn't that obvious?"

"What, like cartoons?" Penny asked.

"Yeah-hyuck!" Goofy said.

The four girls grew silent as they contemplated this. Sora, who had never seen a television in his life, grew silent more out of confusion than disbelief.

"How do you function?" Penny finally asked.

"Gawsh, we're not that different! We put our shoes on one frame at a time just like you hume folk!" Goofy said.

"Let's not dive down this existential can of worms right now." Dani said. "I don't know...let's go back towards the shipwrecks, see what else we can find."

"Oh, tank goodness you're still here!" The crab with a Jamaican accent scurried back into the grotto. "Ariel is in grave danger! She's making a deal with the sea witch!"

The sounds of maniacal laughter guided them through the underwater caves. It was easy to see who the source was; a plump octopus woman who practically oozed evil in her body language.

"Well, well, we have company." The sea witch sneered at them. "But you're too late. The trident is mine, and all the world's oceans are mine to control!"

The sea witch aimed the trident at them, firing a beam of magic that caused them to jump out of the way. No, it would have been faster if she could just jump. But Penny floundered as her tail caught the tail-end of the burst, burning her in a place she did not know she had, and she collided into Dani.

"Great." She said. "How are we supposed to fight like this?"

"We can't just leave Ariel like that!" Dani said.

"I know that!"

No, there had to be some other way that they just did not see. Penny scanned the area. The caves were somehow too wide for her just to knock into some stalactites and knock them into the sea witch. No, that would be too easy. And getting close to her while she had that trident in her hand was going to be hard, too. Then there were the chambers beneath the sea witch, natural depressions of the cave turned into magical cauldrons, brimming with magic.

She had an idea.

"Give me cover." She told Dani, who nodded and charged forward. She was a perfect distraction.

Penny took aim at the cauldron. The concoction churned with the impact of the Blizzard spell. It exploded onto the sea witch, distracting her long enough for Dani to slowly swim into her, knocking her back with her Keyblade. Now the other cauldron. This one was closer, did more damage, knocked the octopus backwards.

"Why…you…" The sea witch growled. She did not get the chance to finish that thought as Ariel made a move for the trident in her hands. The witch caught on too quickly, fired another blast of magic at her before Ariel could get the chance.

Sora and Hanna rushed towards Ariel to make sure she was safe. That left Penny wide open for the sea witch's next attack. She was knocked backwards, only catching herself from being dragged by the current by digging her Keyblade into the sand.

"Fine! If you barnacles want to keep attacking me…" The sea witch said. "…then let me show you the real power of the sea!"

She turned the trident on herself. In a flash of light, she began to grow, and grow, and grow almost so high that Penny would have sworn her head was breaching the ocean and rising to the sky.

Now what? There was no way her puny Blizzard attacks could do enough damage now. There was no way her Fire attacks would even hold a candle, and she did not dare to set off a Thunder spell underwater. And she knew for a fact that she was nowhere near strong enough to fight this thing with just one Keyblade. So what else could she do? It might be different if she could swim better, if she could use her magic to push herself forward…

But why couldn't she, a voice in her head spoke. Donald had told her that all there was to magic was to accumulate the power and imagine your enemy freezing, or being lit on fire, or being zapped by lighting. Merlin had said something similar—all there was to magic was wanting something and letting yourself have it. It was the same energy that Katie used to defend herself with a second Keyblade. All Penny had to do was manifest it.

She pushed herself upward, wanting to surround herself in so much magic she was practically a speeding bullet and letting herself have that. She rose higher and higher out of the ocean, until she was level at the sea witch's eyes. She raised her Keyblade, ready to fire a spell. But it was not a Blizzard, Fire, or Thunder spell. What came out of Scheherazade's Quill was magic itself. And it blinded the sea witch, knocked her off of balance and caused her to collide with the ocean floor, her Heart spiraling out of her chest and her body falling back into Darkness.

"Daddy, I'm sorry, I so so-"

King Trident raised a hand, silencing Ariel. Despite reclining in his throne injured, he still managed to be intimidating. "This is not your fault. I was...wrong, to not let you follow your heart and help your friends. And you."

The five humans, one duck and one dog snapped their heads up and stood at attention.

"I was wrong to judge you. The Keyblade has brought nothing but destruction to this world. You have been the first to bring peace."

"But that means...there have been other Keyblade wielders before us?" Sora asked. He asked the same question Hanna was thinking about. Did he know anything about what was written in Ansem's report?

Triton gave a weak nod.

"There have been many that have come here before. Soldiers. Surface dwellers. You have been the first in a long time. That is, I'm afraid, all I know about them." The sea king said. "What I do know is the Keyhole. I had it hidden in Ariel's Grotto. My trident can reveal it. Keywielders, I ask you this: seal it for me."

"Of course!" Goofy said.

"And then leave my ocean."

Whatever pride Triton had just build up in Hanna collapsed in on itself. A quick look around confirmed the others felt the same way.

"You still trust us that little?" Penny asked.

"I mean no offense...I only wish to protect my family." Triton said.

Ariel looked sheepish. "Sorry about him..."

"Well, you know what? We're gonna do it!" Dani said. "We're gonna do it! And we're gonna seal it better than any other Keyblade master ever has! And we're gonna prove to you we're not all entirely untrustworthy!"

Triton chuckled.

"You have much to prove. But I look forward to the challenge."

SORA obtained CRABCLAW

PENNY obtained OCEANIC OPERA

A keyblade that boosts the power of magic, especially Water spells. Also deals a good amount of physical damage.

"Oh, Christ, my legs!"

"We should have gotten out of the water a long time ago!"

"Look at how pruny my skin is!"

"Okay, can we pull over at, like, the truck-stop world and get a good shower in?"

Author's Note: Lowkey headcanon that Triton's wife in the Kingdom Hearts universe was a Keyblade wielder.